Oh poor Emma. What have they done to your legs! 
(via Photoshop Disasters)
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
They Think I'm A Child
They think I'm a child, but I'm already about the age of Mary when God called upon her to carry the Lord Jesus into this world. I think there is something wrong with a society that tries to keep its people in a child-like state well into their 20's. I have culpability. I can be tried as an adult for certain crimes. Why can't society see me as worthy of honor if I am able to accept disgrace?
I'm sure it has something to do with sexuality. American society can't deal with sexual beings under 17. I think if a girl can't support herself, she has no business exploring her sexuality. But if society won't let me become self sufficient, it really does create more problems.
It seems like society wants to defer self sufficient individuals for as long as possible. But biology doesn't allow this. It's too powerful. And boys are even worse off. I may be wrong, but they seem to allow themselves to be taken for children with less consequences.
It is not something I want society involved in. I don't want people I don't know telling me how to live. They don't have a stake in it -- I do. I don't want society involved. It comes with strings attached.
My goal is to become self sufficient with my own intellect. I want to become a writer. I won't let lack of experience be a stumbling block. But I don't need society to model behavior for me. It models it wrong. And I don't need an indifferent society to tell me what to do.
Where is the virtue in action that is restricted by society? It is antithetical to freedom to let society set the proper action. It is not the least bit interested in me, why should I be interested in it? It is not reciprocal. It is not productive.
If I make mistakes, they are mine. If I succeed, it is also mine. I get the feeling I should just crawl back into my little hole. But I can't.
There is a veneer of admiration and kindness upon society. Not by me, obviously, base on what I have written so far. Or rather, I call it what it is. It is just a veneer. A thin covering. Society doesn't like being called shallow.
Society doesn't care about me and yet I'm supposed to care about it? That's a double standard in my book. And if I don't join society and try to push its agenda, I am a bad person. Again, this is a double standard because society doesn't try to push my agenda for me (nor do it want it to). Is that because of this "greater good" junk? Thank-you Mr. Spock.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Inflation Illustrated
Imagine we have two farmers: Farmer John and Farmer Pickles. They both have a barns full of hay bales from their previous harvest. They both take a bale each day to the market and trade if for a loaf of bread. And this is the extent of their work for that season because they had a very hard summer. Just one bale is taken into town each day by wheelbarrow which is traded for a loaf of bread.
You could say that these two farmers have stored wealth in their barn. It's a somewhat good store of wealth because it's a lot of work for someone to steal.
Then one day an order from the president comes down. They are ordered to sell all of their hay in exchange for currency. To resist this order is to be labeled as unpatriotic. But Farmer John doesn't follow the order. Farmer Pickles does.
So Farmer Pickles takes all of his bales of hay to the market and sells them all for currency. He then puts the currency into a bank account to draw interest. He's happy with this arrangement because he got one penny for each bale. And, it just so happens, that's how much a loaf of bread costs. He doesn't see any problem. And the currency is even harder to steal from than hay in a barn.
But Farmer John keeps his hay in his barn and continues to get his bread the same way he always has. He is accused of being a hay hoarder and very unpatriotic.
After a year of this, Farmer Pickles realizes he has more money than he started out with because the bank is paying interest.
But during that time, the president spent a lot of money without raising taxes. So the president had the currency made, which caused the value of the currency to fall. Eventually, the currency was only worth half as much as it was before. Farmer Pickles didn't get enough interest from the bank to offset the currency's falling value.
Now both farmers have to pay two pennies for a loaf of bread. But Farmer John can also get two pennies for each bale of hay still in his barn. Farmer Pickles is in a pickle.
All of this to say that here, the barn was a better place for the farmers to store wealth. The value of the currency got manipulated by the powers that be. But the actual value of the hay couldn't be manipulated.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
A Song of Sixpence
Before we had TV and the Internet, people would amuse themselves with rhyme and song. But they actually did much more than that. Wouldn't it get boring just singing and rhyming all day, even if that was your only option? If you divide one pound sterling (british currency) into 40 pieces, each piece is called a sixpence. Sixpence was a coin used for 450 years in England. They used to be made of silver and would be worth about $0.30 today if you sold them as scrap. But today, the ones made of silver are collector's items so selling them as scrap would be a bad idea. Some bakers would bake birds in pies to amuse the guests. So put it all together, and you get this famous nursery rhyme: Sing a song of sixpence,
a pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
baked in a pie. When the pie was opened,
the birds began to sing.
Wasn't that a dainty dish
to set before the king? The king was in his counting house,
counting out his money.
The queen was in the parlour,
eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden,
hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
and pecked off her nose! There was such a commotion
that little Jenny wren
Flew down into the garden
and put it back again I never remember hearing the last verse. This rhyme may or may not have caused bakers to start baking birds in pies. Maybe the rhyme came along because the bakers were doing it. But the point is, there were some very mean bakers long ago. I guess nothing has really changed. People were mean many years ago just like they are today. I think this was a form of entertainment because it was a surprise to the guests. Doing something unexpected is always a popular form of entertainment. Today, the news people say, "if it bleeds, it leads."
a pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
baked in a pie. When the pie was opened,
the birds began to sing.
Wasn't that a dainty dish
to set before the king? The king was in his counting house,
counting out his money.
The queen was in the parlour,
eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden,
hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
and pecked off her nose! There was such a commotion
that little Jenny wren
Flew down into the garden
and put it back again I never remember hearing the last verse. This rhyme may or may not have caused bakers to start baking birds in pies. Maybe the rhyme came along because the bakers were doing it. But the point is, there were some very mean bakers long ago. I guess nothing has really changed. People were mean many years ago just like they are today. I think this was a form of entertainment because it was a surprise to the guests. Doing something unexpected is always a popular form of entertainment. Today, the news people say, "if it bleeds, it leads."
Friday, July 24, 2009
At Shooting Range #3 of #3
Last of the videos on the shooting range performing drills with Tactical Response. This was a two day Tactical Response Fighting Pistol training course. One of the best training organizations in the nation.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Are we "Alongside Night?"
"Alongside Night" is a book by J. Neil Schulman about a not-so-distant future that predicted (from the standpoint of 1979) the collapse of the United States government. A lot of people are talking about this book because of the predictions and ideas offered by the author.
I think it is far more useful to explore what Schulman could not have predicted. This is not a criticism in the slightest. To explore what he could not predict is a useful venture because it helps us realize how much worse things really are for the US, economically.
A few key things he did not predict was the importance of the IMF and the World Bank. They existed in 1979, but I believe their importance to the US strategic interests were missed by the author.
The IMF and the World Bank organizations have allowed the US government to effectively export its inflation over to third world nations. Failing to predict this is not an indictment of Schulman's other prediction. But it does serve to increase the time frame in ways he perhaps didn't expect.
The exact mechanism the IMF and the World Bank use to export inflation is simple. They allow the Federal Reserve to monetize foreign debt obligations. Do this in enough countries, and the aggregate volume of dollars is absorbed by them, which allows the US to benefit. As the dollar's use expands beyond the borders of the US, demand continues to rise. The net effect is to keep inflation at bay while it wrecks the economies of nations that accept the excess dollars. That is so sick, if you really sit down and think about it.
Without the IMF and the World Bank, it would have been more difficult for the US to enforce its hegemony across the world. This is another aspect to our future Schulman failed to predict. US hegemony is basically the idea that US interests trump the interest of other nations. It is backed by the US military and enforced by threats of war.
The role of US hegemony is a very simple concept too. It means that what the US says goes. If a country decides to buck the system, they get put in the corner (e.g. Cuba or North Korea). What does it mean to buck the system? Well, for one, it means not dealing in dollars. The primary way to get on the bad side of US foreign policy is to either A) not buy debt from the US or B) not accept US credit.
Hyperinflation was a key thematic element in Alongside Night. It was the reason people used "New Dollars" in the book. As a back-story, some time before the events in the book, there is a currency crisis that forces the government to issue a new currency, hence, New Dollars. The New Dollars are apparently blue instead of green.
There is also a stable currency in the book, issued by what is essentially the EU. Schulman's fictional version of the Euro is a gold backed currency, while in real life, the Euro is only partially backed by gold (for the time being).
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
At Shooting Range #2 of #3
More on the shooting range performing drills with Tactical Response. Every magazine of of mine had at least two training rounds(duds) in it. The purpose is to simulate a real world malfunction so you can train yourself to properly clear the weapon by, "Tap, Rack and Bang" as they call it.
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